CAPE ELIZABETH, Maine — The explosion lifted Lt. John Scagnelli out of his bunk and slammed him into a bulkhead below decks on the USS Eagle PE-56, a warship nine miles southeast of Portland Head Light, just after noon on April 23, 1945.
Blood gushed from the 25-year-old New York City native’s head and into his eyes, but Scagnelli managed to scramble through knee-deep water, up a ladder and onto the listing deck of the aging WWI-era ship.
Standing on the bow section, he saw the Eagle was torn in two, with its stern missing. A former competitive swimmer, Scagnelli then leapt into the icy sea and swam to a group of shipmates already in the water.
They watched the bow section go down, its giant, painted “56” the last thing to slip beneath the waves.
Scagnelli was one of 13 sailors, out of a crew of 62, who survived that day. A week later, an official Navy investigation concluded the explosion was an accident, caused by a faulty boiler.
The real truth wouldn’t come out until 2001.
A torpedo from German submarine U-853, not a boiler explosion, sank the Eagle. The Navy chose to keep that a secret for 56 years, for reasons which are still unclear.
Now, on Tuesday, 79 years to the day since Scagnelli leapt from the Eagle’s bow, the Navy will pay formal tribute to the sailors who died in the worst naval tragedy in New England waters during WWII.
The ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. at Fort Williams.
“There’ll be a Navy color guard, taps, a 21-gun salute and the Coast Guard will anchor a cutter right out there,” said retired Navy Chief Michael Dery, motioning to the sea from Fort Williams Friday morning.
It was Dery who asked the Navy to pay respect to the fallen war heroes this year.
“All I did was call them,” Derry said, “then follow up with about 120 emails.”
After the Navy admitted its mistake in 2001, a small plaque was placed near Portland Head Light honoring the Eagle and her crew, and Purple Hearts were awarded to the surviving and deceased sailors.
In 2019, a dive crew located the Eagle’s remains, confirming the boilers were still intact. In 2020, a second plaque was then placed near the first, listing the sailors’ names, though the pandemic prevented a large ceremony.
Then, in December, Dery found himself at Fort Williams, watching a storm toss the sea. He looked down, saw the plaques and started thinking about the sailors who’d gone down with their ship so long ago.
“I remembered that I’d forgotten them,” Dery said.
Dery then started organizing the service, which will be attended by sailors and the captain of the USS John Basilone, currently under construction at Bath Iron Works.
On Thursday, naval personnel and members of several local veterans groups gathered to rehearse the solemn ceremony. One naval officer on-hand said she liked to think of it as an inaugural ceremony, rather than one that’s nearly 80 years late.
The Eagle, a 200-foot-long submarine chaser built in 1919, spent most of WWII patrolling Atlantic waters between Delaware and Florida. In June 1944, it was reassigned to Naval Air Station Brunswick. On the day of the tragedy, it was towing a dummy ship target while aircraft practiced dive bombing it.
“They were supposed to have an easy day out there, drinking coffee,” Dery said. “The war in Europe was just two weeks from being over.”
Instead, tragedy struck in the form of a torpedo. Several survivors said they saw the submarine’s tower, even describing an insignia of a red horse on a yellow shield. But the local investigation concluded the boiler was to blame.
“Basically, it was a cover up by the local Navy commander,” said attorney and historian Paul Lawton. “They knew it was a submarine the whole time.”
Lawton wrote a book about the incident, which he spent years investigating on behalf of two friends who’d lost their father on the Eagle.
His research revealed that the Navy had been tracking the submarine’s radio signals for weeks, and a destroyer had even made it out on sonar and dropped depth charges in a futile attempt to stop it.
Lawton reckons local Navy officials in Maine were embarrassed to have let an enemy submarine slip into Casco Bay so late in the war and sought to cover up their mistake.
The sub which destroyed the Eagle surfaced again near Block Island, where it sank a coal transport before it was sunk by Coast Guard and Navy ships on May 6.
Scagnelli recovered from his injuries, got married and had three children. He spent his life working for children’s social service organizations around New York City.
In 2005, he visited Fort Williams for a small memorial ceremony and luncheon which included three other survivors.
Scagnelli died in 2013.
In 1960, American divers brought up German remains from the sub wreck and later buried them with full military honors in Newport, Rhode Island.
Now, the 49 American sailors killed by that U-boat crew will finally get similar treatment.
“That warms my heart to tears,” Dery said.
Details about Lt. John Scagnelli’s experience on the USS Eagle PE-56 were taken from “Due to Enemy Action,” a book by Stephen Puelo, based on Paul Lawton’s research and Scagnelli’s obituary.
